Dodgers strike late to beat Giants 4-1

Yasiel Puig scores on an A.J. Ellis double against the San Francisco Giants during the ninth inning. (George Nikitin/AP)

The great Dodgers-Giants rivalry has swung like a pendulum over the decades. At times they have been evenly matched. Other times, one has held sway over the other head to head and in the standings.

A long period of the Giants on top appears to be waning, along with their ability to win games or even score runs.

After sweeping the Giants in Los Angeles on the last trip, the Dodgers ended a series win at AT&T Park with one devastating swing and a 4-1 victory.

Mark Ellis hit a three-run double with two outs in the ninth against Sergio Romo to break a 1-1 tie and send the Giants to their 16th defeat in the past 21 games.

The Giants ended their second consecutive week with one victory. Not much analysis is needed.

Chad Gaudin gave the Giants a chance to win a Clayton Kershaw start with seven strong innings in his first game off the disabled list. But the Giants’ offense responded with three hits in eight innings against the All-Star lefty.

Romo entered in the ninth inning of a 1-1 game and immediately found trouble when Yasiel Puig singled. Adrian Gonzalez hit a grounder to the right side that Brandon Belt deflected. Belt retrieved the ball and tried a misguided throw to second, which was wild.

Pablo Sandoval had to retrieve the ball in short left field. With nobody guarding third base, Puig took it.

Hanley Ramirez then hit a comeback to Romo, who spun toward second base and found nobody covering. Romo then spun and threw to first to get one out when the Giants could have had two.

Romo walked Andre Ethier intentionally to load the bases for Juan Uribe, who struck out on four pitches.

It came down to Romo vs., a tough out, and Ellis cleared the bases with a double into the left-center gap on an 0-1 pitch that gave Los Angeles a 4-1 lead.

Gaudin returned to the mound for the first time since a June 20 line drive by Miami’s Derek Dietrich hit Gaudin near the pitching elbow and sent him to the disabled list.

Gaudin provided the same lift as he did when he first joined the rotation in St. Louis on June 2 and gave the Giants exactly what they needed in a start against Kershaw, who genereally owns San Francisco.

He held the Dodgers to one run on four hits in seven innings. He also struck out nine in a game for the first time since June, 2009, when he pitched for the Padres.

Gaudin struck out Juan Uribe with two on to end the seventh and maintain a 1-1 tie. Durability was no issue. Gaudin threw 92 pitches.

The Giants had a shot to get Gaudin a lead, and perhaps a win, when a two-out Joaquin Arias put runners on second and third with two outs in the seventh, but Cole Gillespie flied out on the first pitch.

The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead when Ramirez tripled and Andre Ethier singled him home in the second inning. Guillermo Quiroz helped curb the rally by catching Ethier trying to steal.

Quiroz then hurt the Dodgers with his bat, hitting a leadoff double in the third. After a Gaudin strikeout and a wild pitch, Andres Torres did well given his lifetime numbers against Kershaw (2-for-33) to hit a ball deep enough to center to get Quiroz home and tie the game 1-1.

Quiroz also caught Puig trying to steal third in an odd fourth inning, in which Dodgers manager Don Mattingly wore a path from the dugout to the umpires.

Puig had singled to start the inning and end a string of five straight strikeouts when Ramirez hit a high deep fly down the left-field line. Mattingly asked the umpires for a video review when the ball was called foul instead of a home run; the foul call was upheld.

Before Puig bolted for third, Mattingly asked for a balk when Gaudin made a pickoff throw to Marco Scutaro, who was standing behind and right of the bag.